


Absolutely Nothing Like Heaven

by brawltogethernow



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: -sics a different protagonist from a dumber series on it-, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, BAMF Mouri Ran, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gallows Humor, Gen, Humor, ah i see how to fix your protagonist's problem, black organization takedown (clipping glitch exploit 15 min speedrun), kaito as friendly neighborhood problem-solving asshole, miraculously enduring beyond your attempted murder: the remix, so cartoon violence with pepperings of true crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24053386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawltogethernow/pseuds/brawltogethernow
Summary: It's a tale as old as time: A detective has to team up with a stage magician to solve his own murder.
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Mouri Ran, Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid & Mouri Ran
Comments: 21
Kudos: 182





	Absolutely Nothing Like Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if this is one of the fastest things I've ever written (knocked it out in five days) or the slowest (concept originally jotted down in 2014).

Kaito is just trying to shop when he sees the _weirdest_ group.

It's two girls and a guy who all look about his age. The girls are in streetwear, but the guy is in a suit-style school uniform. One of the girls, who sports a light bob and some serious queen bee body language, has obviously dragged the other one out for a day on the town in a deliberate act of defiance against the miasma of resigned depression that surrounds the trio.

The guy is following a few paces back, completely left out of the back and forth dynamic wherein the first girl tugs her darker-haired companion around and said companion looks like she's trying to put on a brave, noble face about how someone beat up her dog. He is instead just gazing at the second girl, tragically. He looks like his entire world has ended and now he's walking around in the rubble.

When the glum-looking girl turns and looks in the guy's direction he sums up a bright, reassuring smile. It melts like snow in a sauna the instant she turns away without acknowledging him, falling back into kicked puppydog face.

The unusual thing about this is that the guy is semitransparent, and Kaito is pretty sure the girls cannot see him.

Kaito doesn't have any good disguise stuff on hand, so he follows them through their outing at an out-of-earshot distance. While he's doing this the guy walks right through a couple walking a small dog. Ghost? Sadsack stalker ghost?

The sad girl and the sad guy have kind of complimentary fine-boned-raven-haired looks going on, but Kaito's going to assume they're not related, because he can already tell that if they were that would be a _Star Wars Episode V_ thing. Maybe-ghost _seriously_ tries for a bolsteringly untroubled face every time the darker-haired girl looks through him. What is that, habit? Desperate optimism, banking on there being a kernel of truth in the concept of sending people good vibes?

This is just sad. Something has to be done about this.

Eventually the guy takes a breather from following around people who can't tell he's there to sulk. The skinnier girl cajoles her companion into a shop that sells itty bitty cakes that are mostly frosting by mass in an attempt to cheer her up that can probably be identified as such from space, and instead of following them inside the boy it seems like only Kaito can see sighs dejectedly and slumps against its exterior wall.

He paints a weird, tragic image, staring dead-eyed at the sky. The time seems ripe to go over and yell questions at him.

But then somebody down the street screams -- and the ghost guy tunes into it like he's sound-activated and _runs in that direction._

" _What_ am I walking into," mutters Kaito, and follows him.

He was walking into a recent murder scene.

Kaito eyes Transparent Dude with renewed suspicion. Is he some kind of grim reaper? Was he following that girl to _kill_ her? Like, he didn't want to, and now he gets to spare her by taking this soul instead?

Said cryptid, for his part, is standing over the body of the woman who just choked at this frozen juice stand, scowling down at her pensively with his hand on his chin. Some police showed up and are circling the area, trying to keep everybody from leaving.

Kaito really _was_ out to shop today, so he only has what he had in his pockets to be someone _besides himself_ at this crime scene. As such his entire disguise is a coat of dark lipstick, a side part in his hair, and shifting his voice and posture in a way that will hopefully tip perception of him from 'teenage boy out to buy leeks for dinner' to 'adult butch woman out to buy leeks for dinner'.

"I don't know, Inspector," says one of the cops, rubbing sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. "Maybe it was an accident?"

"It's the _ice maker,_ " says the invisible guy, sounding super pissed off.

Huh.

Kaito sidles over to the ice maker in question. He leans over to look at it.

_Huh._

"If someone would just _check it_ ," the guy is saying to the oblivious police. He waves his hands over his head in the universal signage for _hey, over here!_ as they continue talking.

"Ah, hey!" Kaito calls over to them, barely remembering at the last second to do his fake voice. He points. "Is this supposed to be blue?"

"Ah, yes!" says the stand's new hire, his voice high with controlled panic. "It's from the blue raspberry flavor leaking. It's normal."

The invisible guy stared at Kaito for an uneasy half minute when he insinuated himself into the scene, but speaking up has locked his complete, raptor-like attention on him.

"Ah, really?" asks Kaito, and turns it around while the employee squawks in protest. "It's just that the shape of the stain on the ice looks a lot like the base of one of the cups your stall uses. Are you sure you didn't stash the clean drink in here while you gave Anamura-san a different juice in a cup you prepared earlier in your shift--"

"It was a completely new one he brought from home," mutters cryptid guy absently.

"--That is, that you prepared in advance and brought with you to work today -- contaminated with the substance she was allergic to?"

The invisible guy stares at him harder. Kaito sweats for reasons completely unrelated to the weather.

Well, he's _probably_ not an omen of death, in all likelihood. And if he is, who cares.

"Also the blue raspberry syrup is _way_ over there," Kaito adds helpfully, pointing.

The murderer looks like he's about to up the day's death toll by either strangling Kaito or having a rage-induced apoplexy. Over his shoulder, the ghost guy's attention remains hooked on him.

Kaito smiles benignly at them both.

It takes Kaito's alias _ages_ to get out of there after that, but not as long as it's going to take the new hire, who apparently applied just to poison a regular after she scammed him out of a box full of valuable antiques, to get out of police custody.

Invisible guy dogs his steps -- now that's karma acting fast -- so Kaito steps out of sight behind a decorative hedge once he's a block away from the crime scene, scrubbing the lipstick onto his jacket sleeve and re-ruffling his hair with his other hand.

"Can you--"

"Yes, I can see you, let's not do the whole ghost movie cliché list, okay?"

The ghost guy is suddenly right in Kaito's face, translucent blue eyes burning. "Can you _warn her?_ "

"...I'm going to regret involving myself in this, aren't I," says Kaito faintly.

"So you want me to help _solve your murder?_ " Kaito drawls with as much dubious disinterest as he can manage, even though he's almost definitely going to do it. He really couldn't just leave this poor shade high and dry. No need to let on about that, though.

The guy glares at him acidly, which is some reward for Kaito's completely unindicated impending altruism! "I can _solve my own murder_ ," he says like Kaito has offended him with the very suggestion he can't, and also like this is a normal thing to say. "I'm a _detective._ "

"Ew," says Kaito reflexively.

The ghost detective looks incredulous. He was clearly expecting Kaito to be impressed.

"Nothing personal," says Kaito. "Or, wait. Maybe it's _only_ personal? Whatever. What do you want me to do then?"

Ghost-tective blinks all nonplussed at him, which Kaito is used to, then comes over all sheepish, which is also not exactly rare but is _hilarious_ on this guy's kind of blunt, dismissive demeanor. He looks away, face cherry and practically steaming.

(How does that work. He doesn't have any blood.)

"I-- If you could--" he starts.

Kaito tsks and puts him out of his misery. (Okay, bad choice of words maybe.) "You need me to be your hands, is that it? Lucky you-- I've got probably the most skilled pair in the city." He magics up a puff of smoke and confetti, which makes the ghost detective jump. Wait 'til Kaito brings out the doves, bright boy. "Where to?"

Sad Pining Ghost Guy -- whose name is Kudou Shinichi, apparently, a name that's actually familiar from the news -- has already examined the scene of his own murder (so morbid) and taken advantage of his new ease at breaking and entering and at eavesdropping to collect clues with wild abandon and none of a normal person's understanding of logic or propriety whatsoever. Now he only wants Kaito to act as a glorified courier and pass on information.

"That should be everything," Kudou is saying, like the stuff he had Kaito transcribe wasn't the most alarming ream of atrocities he has ever encountered in one burst, as they approach the doors of the police station. Kaito tugs the brim of his dark baseball cap down over his face. Kudou, Kaito is learning, is a chatty, bossy know-it-all, and Kaito is the first person he has been able to effectively direct those personality traits towards in weeks. It's even more insufferable by dint of Kudou not adjusting his chattiness based on whether or not they're somewhere where Kaito can answer him directly. "So you just have to get it to Inspector Megure. I've figured out who the moles in the police are, but it was completely through invisible stalking, so we have to be careful about convincing them there's even a threat--"

"Cool, cool," says Kaito as they walk inside, only listening with half an ear at this point because he's pretty sure he's got the paranoiac gist. He fishes out a ballpoint pen, signs his caricature on a blank business card with a flourish, and slips it in amongst Kudou's reports. Then he kills the lights.

"...Whaaat are you doing."

"Shh! I'm _performing_ ; ever heard of it?"

For _some_ reason, Kudou seems annoyed that Kaito has made delivering the final deductions of the Heisei Holmes a KID thing. You just can't please some people. As _if_ Kaito is going into this wearing his own face. And doing it all anonymously...is work. And so unrewarding.

"Can't believe Kaitou 1412 is a -- a _kid!_ " Kudou is hissing.

"Yeah? Well, who are you gonna tell about it? You're dead," says Kaito, probably flexing some unfair cruelty.

"I thought you were just one of those superfan copycats!" Kudou continues, bulldozing over this.

"Offensive-- My tricks are much too high quality for that."

"Am I supposed to believe this is why you're some kind of spirit medium?"

"What? No. I don't know what's up with that, and you know what? I don't want to know. Stop asking me. Come on, let's hit the next stop."

Why can Kaito see Kudou? Why is he immune to Akako's charming magic? Why is anything? Sometimes you just have to take advantage of things without understanding them.

Kudou seems much more unwilling to ferry Kaito around the city now that he knows how he's going to be playing this. Some people! He should appreciate Kaito's clout speeding up the whole 'convincing everybody' part of the process. He tells Kudou this.

"Piss off," says Kudou, but drops it after that.

Next up is talking to Mourning Brunette, whose real name is Mouri Ran and was with Kudou right before he went from wearing gumshoes to cement shoes. Apparently someone in the group that iced him is running interference for her, but he trusts this _exactly_ as much as you'd expect him to and is still absolutely twitching to at least get her informed.

Great to know that every time Kudou was trotting around after her he thought he might...witness her being preyed on, completely unable to interfere? Kaito doesn't know what Kudou's life was like, but between this and everything in that file he's declaring the guy's whole death capital-T Traumatizing.

She was in school while they were tormenting, sorry, _informing_ Kudou's pet officers (To my dear attendance record: You'll live. Signed, Kaito), but midafternoon finds her alone for once and waylayable outside of a building. Kudou claims that this is actually more secure, because, "No one plants recording devices out in the street where people will walk on them." Your life, buddy. Er. Existence.

When the object of Kudou's gooey-eyed stalking catches sight of Kaito she goes milk pale, exactly like -- well, like she's seen a ghost.

"Shinichi?" she gasps, her mouth opening and closing like a -- alright, he won't finish that simile.

(So forward! At least Kaito and Aoko cushion their familiarity with shovelfuls of insults. Although, maybe Aoko would also ease up on that if he was dead? ...Nah. He can picture her saying 'Bakaito!' at his fresh grave, actually.)

Kaito looks over his shoulder, thinking Ran-chan has spontaneously caught the ability to see her friend, but Kudou is standing too far to the left, looking as heart-rendingly pine-y as ever.

Kaito turns back to her. Her gaze is aghast, getting damper by the second, and locked on Kaito's face.

He points to himself and silently mouths, Me?

The dams, such as they were, burst on Ran-chan's beautiful, incredulous eyes, and tears spill poetically down her face as she reaches out one hand to clutch at Kaito's shirt.

Unfortunately for her, Kaito is immune to the charms of classically beautiful girls. He steps out of the way.

"KU _RO_ BA!" Kudou shouts indignantly when Ran-chan stumbles, blinking away her surprise. Kaito winces. Detectives are so loud. What, is she going to scuff her penny loafers?

"Ah, sorry," Kaito starts before she can...whatever the next step in the emotional process at work would be, here. He has no idea. "Just one of those faces, I guess, you know how it is."

The searching look she directs at his face does not indicate that she knows how it is, which is fair because Kaito is BSing, but it does make him feel like she's picking his soul up and shaking it to hear the rattle and guess what's inside.

Kaito's made his entire life on only letting people interface with the shiny holographic wrapping paper on that particular package, _thank_ you, so he's about ready to go to extreme measures to get her eyes off him when she breaks the intensity herself, prettily flushing an embarrassed shade of pink.

"Oh, no," she says miserably. "I don't know how I ever thought you were-- Sorry. You just look like..."

She trails off there. This is not the saddest thing Kaito has ever gotten mixed up in, but it is still seriously bumming him out. Behind him, Kudou makes a noise like Ran-chan's unhappiness physically kicked him in the chest.

Fun pity party. Shame that Kaito is going to have to ruin it.

"Yes, about that," says Kaito. How should he introduce this. Maybe he should leave and come back as KID first? Nah, she doesn't know who he is, forget it. "Do you believe in ghosts, miss?"

Whoa, whoa, her soul assessing gaze is armed and aiming a butcher knife now. Apparently that was not the right way. Kaito takes a completely involuntary half step backwards.

Ran-chan just _steps forward to keep the difference even,_ oh god why is this so scary. She's shorter than him and she is _so scary._

"Watch it," she growls, _growls like death, **why** did he ever think she was pretty?_

"Okay I can see that that was probably the wrong approach," says Kaito very fast, both his hands up, backing away steadily as she advances, her fist balled and her dainty little sundress _deceptive, so deceptive._ "But I've been talking to your boyfriend I mean your friend and just listen for a second okay _ohgod_ \--"

"Shinichi is not _a ghost_ ," snarls pretty, scary Mouri Ran. "Because Shinichi is not _dead!_ "

And with that little bombshell, her fist sails past Kaito's head and smashes the wall behind him with a _crack._

"You're a serious case of false advertising, you know that?" Kaito tells Kudou. "I thought your whole schtick was the truth, huh? Is that just a lie? Was it just to sell papers?"

"I didn't _know_ ," grumbles Kudou. "I wasn't _lying_ , I was just..."

Kaito waits.

"Say wrong," he prods eventually. "Say, 'I was wrong, Kuroba-sama; I am a fool and also sorry.'"

"Screw you."

"You sure are bad at following directions."

They are perched on the roof of one of the buildings of Beika General Hospital, which as it can be imagined took Kaito a fair bit more effort than it did Kudou, who floated after him like a sarcastically depressed birthday balloon the entire time.

Should Kaito have put more effort into wondering why Mouri Ran was outside of a hospital to be first found and then escaped from? Maybe! But he is diverting that blame. He is diverting all of it onto Kudou, whose body they are now spying on with Kaito's binoculars. Through the window they're watching through, Ran-chan passes in and out of sight where she's stalking defensively around it, hackles up from Kaito's near miss at getting "a hospital fell on him, so tragic" put down as his cause of death.

"How do you not notice you're in a coma?"

Kudou's answer is unintelligible. He's embarrassed.

"So are you some kind of witch too?" Kaito asks idly as Kudou's body continues to do absolutely nothing, except, presumably, whatever comatose bodies have to be doing to prevent the machines they're attached to summoning medical personnel. "And now you're on some kind of soul jaunt? Is this your warlock coming of age ceremony? Because if it is I'm going to reassess my decision to help you."

Kudou absorbs this question for a silent minute.

"That 'too' is one of the worst words I have ever heard," he says finally.

"Do you have some kind of blood feud with other witches?"

"I am not a _witch_." Kudou's shade looks ticked off. "I don't know what's going on, okay? I got poisoned, and the guys who did it said it would be fatal, and then I came to in the park _anyway_ , and at first I thought I was _fine_ but then it turned out I was _invisible_ and nobody could _hear me_ or _touch me,_ and _ghosts are real I guess,_ and _I thought I was **dead** ,_ so _sorry_ for actually only being _**halfway through the process** , _al ** _right!?_** "

He stops, breathing hard. Or some ectenic facsimile of breathing.

Agh, out of control feelings.

Kaito glares at Kudou's body through the binoculars. Because...

This is stupid, maybe, but he is having a harder time being chill about everything that's happened to Kudou now that he knows the guy isn't dead. It was kind of just a ghost story, before, and it was unfortunate but also too late to do anything about the sad part. Kaito is aces at rolling with losses, one way or another, and coaxing other people into feeling a little bit better about them, usually a lot more gently. A dead high school detective was, sad as it is, in his wheelhouse. You're sad. You solve the mystery or read the will or uncover the lost inheritance, or whatever. And then you move on.

But Kudou looks so pale, and thin, and still, in that hospital bed, all bound up by wires snaking over him. And Kaito has a much poorer track record saving lives than mourning them.

"...What do we do now?" he asks Kudou. That's safer than _I don't know what to do next._

"You need to talk to Ran again."

"Aw, _heck_ no."

"Kuroba! She's _standing between me and them if they want to finish me off._ You _have_ to try again."

Yeah but, _but_. Kaito makes a noncommital noise, squirming a few inches away from Kudou, uncomfortable.

This only increases the look of stress-panic-rage on Kudou's face, and the transparent detective takes a wild, intangible swipe at Kaito. More of a frustrated flail he knows won't connect than anything.

Kaito just barely sees his expression morph into wrongfooted shock for a split second before the detective vanishes. And then--

Kaito's eyes blink without his input. He tries to scoot back and nothing happens. And when he's about ready to panic--

\--Kudou and Kaito both hit the roof sprawling in opposite directions, Kaito from overshooting after his control over his own movements stopped being arrested, and Kudou from -- _whatever_ that was.

Kudou looks _stunned_ , so instead of _freaking out at him,_ Kaito just rasps, "Buy me dinner first. I'm not that kind of guy."

Kudou's huge-eyed, hollow cheeked expression and silence at that probably means Kaito isn't really selling the "unshaken and kind of an ass" vibe he's going for.

"Just," tries Kaito. "Never do that again."

" _Agreed,_ " says Kudou, still clearly shaken.

"You'd better at least give me something to protect myself if you seriously expect me to go face your scary girlfriend again," grumbles Kaito into his knees, which he has his arms wrapped around. It's getting dark. He's going to have to get off this roof soon.

"...Alright," says Kudou thoughtfully. "I'll give you the most powerful thing I can think of."

Kaito looks up, curious. "What's that?"

Kudou looks at him, beams of orange sunset light lancing through him where he should be backlit, and _smirks._

"A secret."

Kaito puts on the white suit this time. Why have two identities to bandy around if you can't cheat after getting off on a bad foot with someone? Kudou rolls his eyes, but doesn't otherwise comment. Kaito is pretty sure he is _also_ at least somewhat terrified of Ran-chan.

Kaito appears in a puff of smoke -- a _safe_ distance away.

"What the..." says Mouri, easing out of the karate stance she'd fallen into automatically when KID appeared. (So...scary.) "...K-Kaitou KID?"

"Ran-san." Kaito is cutting _right_ to the chase this time. "Do you remember when you were a little kid, the first time you saw an airship--"

Ran-chan is _much_ easier to get on board with a trust password. Though it might have helped that this time he lied and told her he was already working with Kudou and got involved in his mess _sans_ séance.

She calms right down about Kaito-as-Kaito too when KID alludes to him being a well-meaning but foolish member of his circle. It's too late though. He's seen what she's capable of. If he had been sleeping well before, he certainly never would have again.

"I guess I shouldn't have come down so hard on that guy..." she mutters, mostly to herself.

Kaito sweats under his hat. "Aha, he probably didn't deserve such harsh treatment, miss."

"He still seemed like kind of a weirdo, though...."

"Oi."

Kudou starts laughing over where he's gone back to his hover-next-to-Mouri routine. Typical that the first time in their acquaintance he laughs it would be at Kaito's expense.

Mouri is down with most of their plan, but not with any of the parts that involve staying out of the way where she can't get murdered and go down _Romeo & Juliet_ style with her childhood friend. These parts were mostly at Kudou's insistence, and dropping them makes Kudou pace and jabber, which is starting to drive Kaito, the only person who can perceive him, absolutely up the wall.

He starts shooting the wall through Kudou with his card gun. It makes Ran-chan stare at him, but it makes him feel better. It's not like she has a leg to stand on about property destruction, anyway.

Except for the literal leg she probably stands on when scything her other leg through innocent inanimate objects.

Kaito's protests aside, they do run through all the clichés, only some when Ran-chan is out of the room. Kudou tries to lie down in his body and see if that magically fixes him. It doesn't, but he does look like such an idiot falling through the bed that Kaito has to apply all his acting skills to _not laughing_ at what appears to be the comatose victim of an attempted murder.

The single two-part silhouette that looms in the doorway of Kudou's hospital room isn't black like 'I'm backlit'. It's black like 'MCR is more than a band -- it's a lifestyle.'

Of course they waited for night. Why would two hitmen representative of a shady criminal organization show up to tie off a loose end at any _other_ time?

It must be a cushy gig, poser-hitmanning. 'No, boss, I can't possibly go to work before nine p.m., that wouldn't be Asthetique™. But ah, I must be in bed by eleven. Beauty sleep is 70% of the job.'

The one with the slasher smile and L'Oreal ad hair walks in first, while the one who looks like a potato in sunglasses and a fedora hangs back, looking around for anything that might interrupt them so Locks of Love can keep his slow murder walk and his phosphorescent murder stare both locked on the bed unimpeded.

Of course, the watchdog hasn't noticed Kaito or Kudou. But then, Kaito is _very_ good at what he does.

And Kudou is invisible.

"Gin and Vodka," Kudou confirms, indicating which is which with head flicks. Delightfully, the potato is Vodka.

Gin -- silver? Ah, no, alcohols -- looms up to the bed. Then he reaches into the pocket of his coat, and Kaito only refrains from shooting him in the hand because he comes out with a newspaper, which he flicks open with a flourish and holds up next to Kudou's (body's) face.

Kaito can make out the headline with dim night vision -- _High School Detective In Accident!_

There goes an expository prop flourished by a man who accidentally missed his calling toward being in gangster movies and became a real gangster instead. Tragic.

...Wait, is he double checking Kudou's face against the photo by the article?

Vodka gives the photo and then the supine detective meat each a quick look and then gives a small nod. Seriously? Are these guys serious?

"Weren't you lucky," drawls Gin, tucking the article away. "But not lucky enough."

Alright, that's more than close enough. Kaito -- KID, specifically -- crushes his eyes shut hard, sets off a flash bang (his personal mix with extra flash _and_ extra bang), and then steps into the space between detective and criminal that opens when Gin stumbles backwards.

"Hey, black market Blues Brothers," he says. "You're not the only ones here who can pull off a monochrome outfit and dated yet iconic millinery choices."

The Kudou who's spectral and conscious actually has the nerve to let out an unamused scoff at this. Excuse _you._ Whose life is Kaito saving right now? The Prince of Persia's? No. An asshole detective's.

He leaves that unspoken for now and just says, "I'm afraid I can't let you do what you came here to, mobster-san."

He hold's Gin's gaze, and he's really trying not to take these guys any more seriously than will get them all through this, but-- This guy's _eyes--_ Kaito's never felt this much like a snake charmer in front of any _real_ snake, or Snake for that matter--

"And you're going to stop me?" says Gin through bared, grinning teeth. Over his shoulder, Vodka points a gun right at Kaito's monocle.

"Oh, you _wish_ it was just me," says Kaito, and then Mouri Ran's foot scythes out of the darkness and connects with Vodka's head.

All more or less at the same time: Ran-chan's kick sends Vodka slamming into a row of filing cabinets. Papers fly upwards. Vodka's gun goes off, loosing a wild shot. Ran-chan darts to close the space between them again before he can recover. Gin stumbles back, raises one arm to shield his face, and with the other draws a gun from inside his coat. Kaito, expecting this, fires a steel card at Gin's weapon, but misses when he flinches hard at the gunshot. Vodka swings one of the cabinet shelves at Ran-chan like a club, and she dodges and tackles him out the door with a roar. Kaito's card takes a chip out of Gin's wrist and sends a ribbon of blood through the air, but his hold on the gun only tightens reflexively. Gin points the gun at Kudou's body's face, eyes wild. Kudou brains him with the digital clock from next to the bed.

As Gin is knocked downwards, Kaito meets Kudou's eyes through the space he just vacated, and Kaito knows, with absolute conviction, that Kudou just went present enough to pick something up because he was just closer to dead than he's been before so far.

While Gin braces himself groggily against the bedside table, Kudou walks right through him, through his own body, through the trailing wires tethering him to life, to stand in front of Kaito.

"Just this once," he says. His eyes are burning with an intense fire both like and unlike Gin's. "How fast can you quick change back into normal clothes?"

"Yeah, got it," says Kaito, under his breath, then grins. "And after all this, how dare you underestimate me?"

When Gin looks up, Kudou Shinichi is standing over him with one casual hand in his jacket pocket.

"But--" says Gin. Looks down at the bed. Still Kudou Shinichi. Across it again. Yeah, also Kudou Shinichi.

He rallies. "You think I don't know you dabble in disguise, magician? What a cheap trick."

"Oh, what?" says Kudou, and then blatantly reuses the line that didn't work for Kaito earlier. "You don't believe in ghosts, Gin?"

 _Something_ makes all the freely dangling bits and bobs that populate any hospital room _rattle._ Gin is completely convinced that this is a KID magic trick, but some old instinct at the base of his spine must still tell him that it's not, because his cocksure smile flickers.

Kudou, with Kaito's mouth, assumes his own trademark smirk.

"There's no such thing, _magician_ ," says Gin.

His eyes don't look like he believes it.

"Well," says Kudou, curling the word out with the barest chuckle and all evident enjoyment. "When you have eliminated the impossible..."

Gin visibly tries to raise his gun and finds his arm frozen in place. Its presence weighing on the room increases the power of Kudou's ghost, allowing him the paradox-derived strength to stave off his own demise.

"You have the look of someone who's killed a lot of people...Gin."

Kudou reaches out, laconic, and plucks the weapon from the frozen mercenary's hand.

"Whether you remembered them or not... You should have known...sooner or later..."

He spins the gun one-handed so he's holding the grip, and points it at Gin's...arm? Kaito is willing to bet that if you asked a professional marksman what the safest place to shoot someone is, they'd tell you exactly the random-seeming spot where Kudou is aiming. Kaito's not _uncomfortable_ with non-trick guns, per se, but he can feel that Kudou's grip is a thousand times more practiced than his would be.

"One of them... Was going to _catch up to you._ "

Gin's eyes dart to the doorway, from where there had been percussive noises and crashing and there is now only worrying silence. Kudou's grip tightens slightly. They're both wondering who's down their backup, worrying -- if Gin even worries about people at all.

As if in answer, a figure looms up in the doorway yet again -- a pale, slight one. Ran-chan's demure blouse and sweater ensemble is rucked up, there's a bruise on her exposed forearm, her ojou-lite hair is a mess, and she's breathing hard. But no one follows her.

Her eyes widen in shocked recognition for the second time, even though she _knows_ Kaito can pass for her friend in the dark. The same truth that was apparent to Gin is just as plain to her -- probably clearer, as far as Kudou and Mouri's history stretches back. Kaito feels his own eyes widen in response without his input, which is still just the worst even having gone in this time with his eyes -- _ha ha_ \-- wide open.

In the corner of his-but-not-his vision Kaito sees Gin take advantage of being released from Kudou's attention and their mutual distraction to start to move.

This prompts Ran-chan to put aside one situation that makes no sense to favor another that is very simple -- the situation where she is baring her teeth, crossing the room with her messy hair flying behind her like an avenging angel's wings, and chopping a very bad man in the neck with surgical precision.

Gin falls like a rock. Kudou loses his grip on Kaito's body and goes toppling with barely any more grace.

At least he's not tangible enough to knock anything over.

Ran-chan looks back up at Kaito's face, then blinks in surprise when she doesn't find what she's searching for there. He can read her incomprehension and then her silently asking herself if she imagined what she saw like it's written on her forehead.

Ah, well, Kudou can deal with that. Hopefully. It's not like she's _Kaito's_ friend.

When people show up -- the Men In Black But Organized Crime had a lot of the people who would normally be in the hospital at night diverted, which is deeply alarming to consider, but didn't think they'd need to cover for as much noise as they ended up making, and people still called 110 and spammed Beika General's own emergency lines -- they find two highly suspect individuals and another KID calling card telling them to search said individuals for any suspect substances specifically. And, lo! The Sephiroth-looking unconscious lump of man has pockets _full_ of weird pill satchets that might just hold the key to waking up Tokyo's favorite meddling kid.

The next morning Kaito sends a dove with a mic clipped to a bow around its neck to make him proud by fluttering around where she ought not to be, and KID, Kudou, and Ran-chan crouch behind the hospital dumpsters and cluster around the receiver as it spits out surprisingly optimistic snippets like, "--simple reverse-engineering?" "--halt the degradation and--" and, oddly, "-- _hell_ is it doing to the telomeres!? ...Cold storage that one." And lots of trilling and cooing, because dove.

Kudou's shoulder is clipping into Ran-chan's with how close he's crowding, and they have matching expressions of determined focus on their faces. Kaito and Aoko have definitely never been this cute. ...And if they have, she'd agree that they need to stop immediately.

"So I'd say us leaking that information to the papers went well," says Kaito when their ill-gotten entertainment hits a lull.

Ran-chan's nod is fast and firm. The motion causes Kudou to finally notice where he's standing and lean out of her arm.

The bodies Ran-chan left for the police like an enterprising cat (Kaito is pretty sure some of them have deduced whose fist prints those are all over Vodka's face, because he distinctly heard one officer remark, "At least when _she_ brings in bodies, they aren't dead,") finished off the process Kudou started when he had Kaito transcribe the results of his extended bout of unsleeping, invisible, without other obligations stalking. It would look pretty freaking embarrassing for law enforcement everywhere how long this group of weirdos were running around killing people if they hadn't already been 70% of the way to smoked out when it started hitting the news.

(There wasn't anything in Shinichi's big file o' doom that looked related to _Kaito's_ fedora wearing weirdo problem, but he's keeping an eye on things just in case anything turns up.)

Kaito rises with a stretch, tipping his hat down over his face at Mouri. "Well," he says, with that extra bit of grandness he uses for KID. "It seems like this story is going to have a happy ending -- or as much of one as this magician can wrangle. Good day, Ran-san."

Before he vanishes Ran-chan fixes him with a considering, maybe a little bit dubious look. It's kind of hard to say-- She has resting adorable panda face. But he's pretty sure she strongly suspects KID and his dumbass assistant are the same person.

Ah well. Not like he ever gave her a name.

He expects Kudou to stay behind with Ran-chan, but the detective pops right out of the wall Kaito ducks behind after making his suave exit to wrestle his Kuroba Kaito clothes straight. Excuse you, sir, this part of the performance is not for public consumption.

"You sticking around?" he says, shooting a look at the detective up and sideways through his bangs as he tugs his shoe until it feels like it's on right.

Kudou shrugs with affected nonchalance. "Or go back to not being able to talk to anybody for who knows how much time? Pass."

"Ah, so it's about that...." Kaito says, starting off at a trot. "I shouldn't be surprised-- You sure do like to listen to yourself talk. That cheesy speech about wrongs catching up to you..."

"Oh, because you've never made a cheesy speech?"

"That isn't what I said."

Before Kaito is even halfway home, someone screams in a building they walk past.

Kudou air-nudges him, careful not to accidentally possess him again. "Go check it out."

"Haven't I done _enough_ good deeds this weekend?" Kaito grumbles, but goes anyway.

"I'm telling you, that's not my parrot! Someone's switched it out with an identical fake!"

"This doesn't need our intervention," says Kaito.

"Go on," says Kudou.

"--And if you won't believe me, _I'll kill you right here!_ "

Kudou flinches. "No seriously."

Kaito starts running. "I'm going, I'm going!"

When the police get there the matter has been resolved without bloodshed, which Kaito takes all the credit for, but also the police are there, which he blames Kudou for. Police never show up to his _solo_ meddling sprees unless he _invites_ them.

The shortish roundish mustachioed(...ish...?) investigator goes white and stutters, "Shinichi-kun--!?"

"Nope!" interrupts Kaito, who is rapidly learning the steps to this dance. "I am a random citizen! Would the Heisei Holmes be sitting here, covered in blue feathers?"

"...Maybe...?" offers the other officer behind the first one.

"Oi, oi," says Kudou, twitching an eyebrow at this.

In an oddly adorable turn of events, the disappointment of learning that Kaito is not Kudou Shinichi, awake and well, makes the senior inspector take a mild dislike to him, and Kaito gets booted off the scene fairly quickly.

Kudou stalks Kaito's life for a couple more days after that. He bullies Kaito closer to three more ongoing crimes, and critiques his plans for his next heist. He's not there _all_ the time -- presumably leaving to go stalk Ran-chan's life -- just enough to make a nuisance of himself.

This pattern of behavior means Kaito doesn't notice immediately when Kudou starts blinking in and out of focus. Then he starts vanishing entirely, in patches that start out in minutes and settle out into hours. Given the environment that made his ghostly presence _more_ tangible, they decide to take this as a good sign.

All of the news and most of the gossip that whole time is how an international criminal conspiracy got uncovered and dismantled practically overnight. If Kudou looks any smugger his face is going to compress into a black hole.

"Everyone'll get bored of this soon enough," Kaito needles him. "You watch. An idol will start dating somebody and everyone will get distracted."

Kudou just looks smugger.

Then he softens out into an almost bearable level of insufferable. A lower-than-Hakuba insufferability emissions rating. "You could gloat a bit too, you know," he says. "You did a little more than just run around passing notes for me, in the end."

"Mah, I've got my own work to do," deflects Kaito. "We can't all move on to something new every week like you."

Kudou eyes the gadget Kaito is tinkering with (get this: roller skates...with rockets... _on a tight rope_ ) with a gimlet eye, and Kaito has the uncomfortable impression that Kudou has scanned his deepest motivations right out of his soul without so much as an excuse me.

"If you ever want help with some of that..." he says.

"I will think about it," allows Kaito.

And he even means it.

Kudou hmphs.

They are both, Kaito supposes, more of the grand sweeping gestures type than the sort of people who sit down and calmly exchange honest feelings. Maybe Kaito will set something Kudou loves on fire as a declaration of friendship.

"Look, I guess I haven't actually said this," starts Kudou, who is apparently not quite at that point, yet. He flickers in Kaito's vision, like a heat mirage, but pushes on through it. "But thank--"

Silence eats the rest of his words, and he vanishes.

"Typical," says Kaito to his empty workbench. He turns back to his not at _all_ ill-advised skates. "I'll bet anything you trying to get all mushy shot-putted you right to waking up for good, detective."

Shinichi tastes salt first. Before the sounds he's hearing clear up enough to make sense, before the feeling of a hand in his, before the cold seeping from the ceiling vent, before he can crack his eyes open and then wait for them to notice they're expected to do their job again.

"Okay, don't _cry_ ," he says. His voice sounds like he's been deepthroating sandpaper, i.e. mostly silent.

Ran looks up right away, anyway. "I'm not _crying_ ," she says through tears.

Then she basically falls on him, because it's not easy to hug somebody lying down who's been neatly folded into a bed by someone who professionally makes beds.

"You've missed a lot, mystery otaku," she says into a mouthful of gritty hospital blanket.

"Probably not as much as you think," rasps Shinichi.

"I'm not joking," says Ran. "You have to help me track down Kaitou KID so I can thank him. So get walking soon, because until you can I won't explain why."

That would be _such_ good bait to keep him applied to PT normally. Shinichi is impressed, and slightly alarmed.

Does she actually have something to say to KID she didn't during the cleanup...? Well, chances are she specifically means "thank him" by bringing him stew or something. Valid-- Kuroba lives off spite and his neighbor's cooking.

"Don't worry," says Shinichi. "I know where he lives."

**Author's Note:**

> "Remember when we were little and you thought a blimp was a UFO" is a canon-adjacent trust password Kaito overhears and uses to impersonate Shinichi in movie 14.
> 
> Edit: Oh and the title is a reference to the coma ghost romcom Just Like Heaven. Which this is inspired by, though I'm hesitant to call it an actual JLH AU, since I've seen the film in question once, incompletely, fifteen years before writing this.


End file.
